ITALY: Hymn of Praise

Italy last week went into Round Two of its
electoral contest (TIME, June11). The scene: poverty-stricken Sicily,
which was electing a 90-member legislative assembly. There Reds scored
even bigger gains in popular vote than in the municipal elections in
Northern Italy two weeks before. The Communists, who rolled up a vote
of 464,000 in 1948, gained 180,000. The Demo-Christians lost nearly
400,000. Because of Italy's new electoral law, which provides that any
party with a plurality in a district automatically gets two-thirds of
the seats for that district, the Demo-Christians managed to gain ten
new seats. The new line-up in...